The Nonconformists South Floridian Takes Comfort In Imperfection

October 21, 1988|By ELIZABETH ROBERTS, Special to the Sun-Sentinel

For 10 years, Jimmy Williams has waged a one-man rebellion against South Florida decor. His weapons have been his imagination and the gleanings of rubbish piles and rummage sales. His arena has been his quadriplex, and his results have been nothing short of startling.

Gone are the off-white walls, the variegated shag carpeting and the patio covered with ``grass carpet.`` Today, the floors of the 1,300-square-foot apartment are Mexican tile laid, irregularly, by Williams himself. The walls are stenciled with palm trees and tropical scenes reminiscent of those once found in the lobbies of Miami hotels. And the exterior is -- well, it`s pure Jimmy Williams, a riot of Florida plants, assorted junk and free-form sculpture made from the telephone company`s castoffs.

The effect is akin to what Andy Warhol might have done had he taken on Key West.

If Williams` creation is not your typical designer home, perhaps that`s because Williams, 50, is not your typical designer. He is a native Floridian and a self-described character, a person who rejects conformity and revels in the natural imperfections that make things unique. Every aspect of his unit speaks to that philosophy.

``Most people want other people to decorate for them, but I figure you`re only going to be here one time,`` he says. ``It`s your turn. It`s your trip, so accumulate what you think is yours and put it where you want it.``

Williams has spent the past 10 years doing that. The first 40, however, he spent living according to Hoyle. Born and raised in West Palm Beach, he graduated from Palm Beach High School in 1956 and immediately went to work. In those days, if you weren`t going to college, the best thing you could do was to get married and go to work for a utility, he explains, so he did both. He landed a job with Southern Bell and married his childhood sweetheart.

Ten years ago, after the marriage ended in divorce, Williams was driving down Alemeda Drive one day when he spotted a sign touting pre-construction prices at a quadriplex in Palm Springs. The frugal side of his Scotch-Indian-Irish heritage told him the price was right, so he bought two units and started decorating. When he retired from the phone company last February, he started decorating in earnest.

Today, Williams owns four of 20 units and has voting power unparalleled in his complex. He has used that leverage to transform the yard for the length of the building into a combination aviary, tropical garden and nautical display.

The entrance is shaded by black olive trees three stories tall that are entwined with golden pothos vine. Nailed to the plank fence surrounding the yard are signs that warn, ``Parking by Disabled Permit Only,`` ``Private property,`` ``No Trespassing`` and ``F.E.C. Rwy. Co.`` The warnings are incidental; Williams collects signs and stuck them up for decoration, not for information.

Inside the fence, the back yard is a forest of telephone poles cut to varying heights and wrapped in rope salvaged from the phone company. The immediate effect is nautical, but the vision is bombarded with assorted objects collected chiefly for interest value -- an old telephone booth, two hammocks, an ammunition box that Williams bought for $1 from a Vietnam vet.

Overhead, Williams has hung two enormous umbrellas made of rough cloth. Originally, telephone men used them to shade themselves from the sun while they worked on the poles. Now, the umbrellas provide shade for an assortment of ferns.

FOUND OBJECTS

Sprinkled throughout the yard are curiosities: telephone insulators from 50 years ago made of green and blue glass; a 50-year-old crossarm that once formed a ``T`` at the top of a phone pole back when they were spaced 150 feet apart along every Florida road; a metal bar used by pairs of men to lug heavy railroad ties back when Henry Flagler was building his railroad.

``The people that used some of these tools died before I was born,`` Williams says intensely. ``They mean something to me because I`m a South Floridian.``

Given the man, that is not all that surprising. Small and wiry, Williams has the muscular shoulders of a man twice his size and the firm opinions of a man half his age. He is balding, and with his mustache and tie-died tank top, resembles nothing so much as a character from a Jimmy Buffett song.

Like the objects, the landscape is a melange of plants that caught Williams` interest, in part because he thought he could make them even more interesting. Besides the black olives and flame vine, there is a lanky tree that Williams has trained to grow in circles; as a result, it provides a natural frame for two plastic porthole covers.

There is an umbrella tree that Williams has weighted with a large bird cage so it bends aesthetically toward the patio. In fact, there are five bird cages of various vintages in the back yard. There is only one bird, a finch, but Williams spreads food for the wild ones, too.